Fouts Still Has a Nose for Winning : He Remains Optimistic, Despite His Injury and Team’s Slow Start

He couldn’t breathe through his nose and he was sick to his stomach, but Dan Fouts never asked for a painkiller and never considered coming out of Sunday’s game against the Raiders.

“I was fine,” he said Wednesday, applying a curious and unflinching form of logic centered more in the gut than the cerebrum.

Two days after a surgeon put the pieces of Fouts’ nose back in place and applied a few rolls of tape to hold it all together, the Charger quarterback indulged an audience of reporters.

“It looks a lot worse than it really is,” he said.

He was speaking of his nose, not Air Coryell, in case any cynical fans might be wondering.

“I’m really optimistic,” Fouts said with respect to the team’s offense, missing in action the past three weeks. “I really think we’ll play a lot better this week. I’m ready to go right now.”

Fouts interrupted his briefing and left the room in search of a tissue.

“You guys get my blood pressure up and I start to drool,” he said before wandering down the hall.

He was back in a few moments. No doubt, his hasty return was intended as some sort of metaphor for the reappearance of the Charger attack.

Fouts then provided a new slant on the current slump.

“It’s not my worst stretch,” he said. “We lost 11 in a row once.”

That was in 1975 to open the season.

Fouts, younger and much friskier in those days, ended the drought with a quarterback sneak for the winning touchdown in a 28-20 victory over Kansas City.

In the excitement of the moment, Fouts then spiked the ball. In so doing, he injured his right shoulder. He was able to start the next week’s game, but was subsequently injured and didn’t play again as the Chargers wound up 2-12.

Viewed in that context, the current spate of 11 interceptions in three games doesn’t seem quite so ugly.

Fouts, by the way, doesn’t think he is in a slump, although such authorities as Lester Hayes of the Raiders have raised the possibility.

“I don’t think a slump is applicable to football,” Fouts said. “There’s very little carry-over from week to week. It’s not like a batter going for 0 for 12, or a basketball player missing five free throws in a row.”

Fouts is willing to be held accountable, but not to accept full blame for the recent disappearance of Air Coryell.

“We could all play better. We’re all responsible,” he said. “The quarterback has to make (his passes) catchable. If not the receiver has to correct it.

“I haven’t said to myself, ‘My God, there’s a lot of pressure on me.’ We are always under pressure. This is a high-pressure offense. It comes with the job. It’s part of what I do for a living.”

So are broken noses.

Fouts underwent an operation Monday to repair both a fracture of the nose and a deviated septum, injuries incurred when Raider defensive lineman Sean Jones belted him Sunday. A 17-13 loss left the Chargers with a 1-3 record going into Monday night’s game against Seattle in the Kingdome.

It was originally believed Bill Picket had inflicted the break, but Fouts, after viewing film of the game, identified Jones as the culprit. He also said he thought it was a cheap shot, since he was nearly on the ground when the hand of Jones penetrated his facemask.

But, in the spirit of the day, he seemed inclined Wednesday to forget the play and look forward.

“Our defense is playing well and we (the Charger offense) want to get on the bandwagon,” he said. “We were just missing on a lot of plays against the Raiders, and if we made them, it would have been a different game.

When he takes the field Monday night against the Seahawks, Fouts will wear a facemask with a vertical bar to protect his nose. He also may have a plastic mask to shield his nose, a double-fastening chin strap to keep his helmet stable, and a splint to afford extra security.

Although other Chargers are drawing strength and comfort from a players-only team meeting this week, Fouts isn’t necessarily among their number.

“I wasn’t part of the meeting (because of the surgery), so I really don’t know what the mood was,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of meetings. This one was positive, from all I have heard. The attitude of the ballclub is very positive.”

The meeting was the idea of veteran ends Kellen Winslow and Wes Chandler. They thought of calling a meeting a week ago, after a loss to Washington, but decided to hold off.

“We were hoping the losing streak would end at two,” Chandler said. “We were hoping not to hit skid row. But now we have lost three in a row, and that’s the max we can afford.

“I think the meeting will have a hell of a good effect on our practices and in our game next Monday.”

Assistant head coach Al Saunders seems to view the problems in the Charger passing game as small matters that can be corrected with attention to detail.

“We are talking about half a second in protection time, or a guy getting two inches higher off the ground to catch a throw,” Saunders said.

“How do you fix things? Well, the more refined you are, the more finesse you have, the more subtle are the refinements you make. It’s not like a guy lifting weights, where he either gets the weight off the ground or he doesn’t.”

There has been utterly no loss of confidence in the system that has worked for the Chargers for years, according to Saunders.

“We have the same people who made this the No. 1 offense in football over the past seven years,” he said. “We have to believe that if we keep our eyes on the target and our nose to the grindstone, things will develop the way we want.

“We look at this as just an atypical situation. We’re not clicking right now. But we prefer to believe this is the exception to the rule.”

Coach Don Coryell struck a similar theme.

“I certainly have not lost faith in our ability to win football games,” he said. “The season is young yet. Nobody on the team has given up hope. The worst thing that could happen would be to get down and make excuses. I see none of that. We’ve just got to bounce back. Survival depends on it.”

Charger Notes

Offensive guard Sam Claphan is listed as questionable for the Seattle game. He suffered a back injury in the locker room before the Raider game. Claphan was pulling on his socks when something popped in his back. Coach Don Coryell said he doesn’t believe the injury is serious, but the Chargers will get Jim Leonard ready to play in case Claphan can’t. . . . Mark Herrmann should be able to play this week if needed, Coryell said. Herrmann’s name appears on this week’s injury report, but that may have been a clerical error. “He’s a full go,” Coryell said. . . . Linebacker Billy Ray Smith, who reinjured a sprained ankle against the Raiders, is questionable for the Seattle game. Trainer Marc Howard said Smith’s condition may not be known until the weekend. . . . Running backs Gary Anderson and Tim Spencer are both expected to play this week. Anderson, who has a hip pointer, played sparingly in Los Angeles. Spencer missed the game with a knee injury.

DAN FOUTS IN 1986

Att Comp Pct Yds Gain TD Pct Int Pct Long Rate 159 84 52.8 960 6.04 7 4.4 11 6.9 34 57.1